Improve your home office setup with these great helpers
If you work from home, your home office workspace is where you spend a considerable chunk of your time. Working from home brings up many different distractions you didn’t have to worry about when making the daily commute to work. Some things you can’t influence, but there are some ways you can improve your home office experience.
Maybe your significant other sings along to his or her new favorite song while doing the dishes, especially when you’re on a video call. Perhaps you were previously unaware of the fact that your dog loves barking at every car that drives down your street during the day.
It becomes more challenging to separate work and life when your professional space merges with your personal space. Because you’re home, it’s tempting to catch up on household tasks you otherwise would be unable to do from a traditional office.
Having a specific place to do your work is essential to your mental and psychological wellbeing, productivity, and efficiency.
Whether you’ve been working from home as a freelancer for years or are new to the home office due to COVID-19, here is how to create a fabulous home office for under $1,000.
Invest in a standing desk – $289.99
It’s time to get to work, but is your super comfortable office chair bringing down your mood, energy level, and productivity? Recent studies say yes, and we’ve written about the benefits of standing desks as well..
The study surveyed over 140 people who changed from a sedentary working position into a standing desk workspace. 52 percent of them said they felt more engaged in their work, and 43 percent of them reported a massive uptick in performance.
Luckily, there is a sleek, modern, and easy solution to your desk chair blues. This standing desk. Retailing at just $290, this desk comes in a variety of colors and textures. It’s adjustable, making sure that it caters to all kinds of workers and allows you to bring it to sitting level if you need a few breaks during the day.
Being able to switch between sitting and standing during the day, while remaining in your workspace is bound to improve your home office work experience.
Score some noise-canceling headphones – $299.95
Do you need to strategize and be creative? Maybe you head bob to some chill folk music. Are you pumping out some copy for a client? Perhaps it’s upbeat pop music for the next few hours. Are you pulling a coding binge with a pot of coffee right next to you? Maybe it’s time for some hip hop or metal.
Whatever mood you are in or music you like, having some good tunes while you work is always a good bet. There’s nothing better than noise-canceling headphones to jam out with. Repeatedly regarded as the best over-ear headphones on the market, the Bose Quiet Comfort 35 II nearly transfers you right inside the recording studio.
Your brain starts to associate specific playlists with tasks, so get busy creating mood-boosting playlists for different work tasks. You’ll be done with that pitch, article, or project before you know it.
Buy a living, breathing friend – $98 plant holder/bonsai tree
Humans have an inherent need to be around nature. Lock yourself in a windowless basement with nothing but technology for a few weeks, and it will make an impact on your mental and psychological wellbeing.
Biophilia, defined as “a love of life and the living world and the affinity of human beings for other life forms,” proves humans thrive when within nature, but suffer when isolated from it.
On top of reducing all types of stress and just being a joy to look at, having plants around you can also help your concentration and memory.
This levitating plant holder will improve your home office space. Not only does it give you a place to hold your new friend but will rotate 360 degrees for your viewing pleasure. If you selected the maple standing desk, this holder would match perfectly. But what to plant inside it?
This rock juniper bonsai tree encapsulates the essence of a giant bonsai in miniature form. Its unique shape and size make it a perfect starter tree for your home office.
The Trio – $299.99
For those of you that work on multiple projects per day, often at the same time, it is often necessary to have more than one screen open at once.
Instead of filtering through windows or tabs on your laptop, score two extendable and adjustable monitors just by connecting a few USB cables.
The Trio is one of the most-funded Kickstarter campaigns of the past year and allows you to connect two external monitors right onto your laptop and extend them out for a total of three screens.
Just fasten four magnets to the back of your computer and attach the monitors. When your tasks are all done, the thin monitors lay on the back of your laptop until you need them next.
Now that’s efficiency!
LED desk lamp $9.99
Let’s face it; not all home offices are created equal. If you have a big, bright window you can set your desk up next to, it will give you access to most of the natural sunlight your body craves.
But for those that have turned their small spare room into their home office, or don’t have the optimal space for a large workspace, getting natural sunlight can be a problem when spending long hours alone.
That’s where this LED light comes into play. It mimics natural sunlight, so when you get the winter blues, feel down in the dumps or feel lonely, you can get an extra kick of simulated Vitamin D. This one is available for just $10.
If you’ve been adding along, that adds up to a total of $997.92.
The minimalistic home office theme is often fresh, crisp, clean, and modern. It consists of the bare essentials to maximize production and limit distractions. There are limitless ways to customize a minimalistic workspace to tailor it to your wants, likes, and desires.
The thought is to only add the most necessary items to your workspace. When you approach your home office every morning, you’ll have an uncluttered mind that matches your workspace.
